LandKeepers News Archive
Enbridge Pipeline Opposed by Pembina Because of Increased Oil Production
January 18 2010 | News Articles | Calgary Herald
CALGARY — A new report on the potentially negative environmental impacts of an oilsands pipeline to the West Coast has opened a new front for environmentalists opposed to the idea.
The Pembina Institute, an environmentalist group, on Monday formally came out against Enbridge Inc.‘s Gateway pipeline by saying the increased production needed to fill the line will have adverse impacts on land, air and water.
Instead of focusing on the pipeline itself, the report details “hidden” environmental impacts associated with increasing oilsands and bitumen production by 30 per cent over existing levels.
“It’s the first time we’ve calculated the upstream impacts of filling that pipeline,” Simon Dyer, Pembina’s oilsands program director, said in an interview. “There’s a growing recognition that these pipelines, regardless of where they’re headed, comes at a significant cost.”
According to the report, production associated with the pipeline: – Would produce 25 million barrels of toxic tailings, enough to fill B.C. Place Stadium 1.5 times; – Disturb 11.5 square kilometres of forest, an area nearly three times the size of Vancouver’s Stanley Park; – Consume the amount of natural gas used by 1.3 million households in Canada each year; – Use the amount of water consumed annually by a city of 250,000 people; – Result in enough tailings leakage to fill 182 Olympic-size swimming pools.
Pembina is calling for a moratorium on transportation of oilsands production from Alberta across B.C. until a public inquiry examines impacts associated with oilsands production. Industry backers have touted the 1,200-kilometre pipeline as a way of diversifying markets for Canadian oil in making more available to China. Currently, Canada’s oil is overwhelmingly exported to the United States. Pembina suggested the environmental assessment of the project will ignore the environmental impacts and increased greenhouse gas emissions associated with increased oilsands production.
Steve Greenaway, who heads Enbridge’s Northern Gateway operating subsidiary, said the report doesn’t contain any specific information directed specifically against the pipeline. “I’m not sure there’s a lot new here,” he said in an interview. “I don’t think they (Pembina’s criticisms) are specific to our pipeline as a pipeline.”
Greenaway said Enbridge takes environmental concerns seriously and hopes to alleviate public concerns through an intensive public dialogue. Pembina’s volley opens a new front in the pipeline war, which has previously been dominated by opposition to tanker traffic along the West Coast and access to traditional native lands.
Public opinion polls in B.C. have shown overwhelming opposition to opening the coastal waters to oil tankers and aboriginal groups have so far been reluctant to allow access to traditional lands.
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